


it’s all my fault that i'm still the one you want

by cyanica



Series: maybe i just took too much cough medicine [whumptober 2020] [16]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Banter, Bathing/Washing, Blood, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Concussions, Enemies to Lovers, First Kiss, Fluff, Frenemies Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson, Getting Together, Hair Washing, Head Injury, Humor, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV), Protective Sam Wilson, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Whump, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:13:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27303217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanica/pseuds/cyanica
Summary: Sam spoke first, lips rosy and slick, just close enough to Bucky’s own for him to feel the warm air brush against his cheek. "Damn,” he breathed, “you’re a lot more concussed than I thought."Or there’s a different kind of hate in hating Sam Wilson, Bucky thinks as Sam washes his hair in a bath that smells of lilac lavender, that maybe isn’t really hate at all.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Series: maybe i just took too much cough medicine [whumptober 2020] [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947775
Comments: 20
Kudos: 160
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	it’s all my fault that i'm still the one you want

**Author's Note:**

> post endgame (maybe before the funeral tho?)
> 
> once in a while when i am not an angst teen, i am absolute trash for cheesy fluffy hurt/comfort… so this is that :333
> 
> whumptober prompt day 26: if you thought the head trauma was bad..., concussion.
> 
> title from ‘some kind of disaster’ - all time low

“Mm, this is nice," Bucky moaned softly into the warm touch of Sam’s hand caressing the washcloth over his head, soothing the dulling ache and washing away the flaky blood that had dried to his scalp. For an inexplicable, abstract moment, the world started to shift from where his mind resided, pushing beyond the raw soreness throbbing within his head, and morphing his senses to somewhere other than the end of the word, and to where it always smelled of violet posies in the sunshine and the familiarity of home. “I like this.”

The bath Sam had drawn for him smelled of lilac lavender, dragging up some distant memory of making flower chains in the springtime, and though Sam wouldn’t have known that – couldn’t have – Bucky somehow felt at home, more than he’d ever felt since _everything,_ despite how ridiculous the thought was.

Maybe it was the concussion. Yeah, that would be easier to pin the blame on. 

_("Oh,_ I’m _sorry, Wilson? Is this your_ 'severe' _head wound? Didn’t think so – stay out of it."_

_"God, you are undeniably,_ insufferably _concussed. Just trust me, as soon as you're not walking around like a dazed manic straight outta Thriller, we can go back to wanting to kill each other all we like."_

_"What are you gonna do? It’s a headache, it’ll pass."_

_"I’m gonna throw your ass in the tub, dose you to high-hell on pain meds and then put you to bed.”_

_"Gonna read me a children's bedtime story while you're at it?"_

_"You get ‘Shrek 2’ – take it or leave it."_

_"Is that even –_

_"Now shut up and pick a bath bomb.”)_

Sam's versions of children's bedtime stories aside –

Bucky hadn’t even realised, but he was leaning into Sam’s hand as he washed away the blood and dirt and pain, and was simply content within the overwhelming, intoxicating feeling of safety from someone so close.

– Because despite what they were and how they appeared to be, Bucky and Sam were a dysfunctional kind of hate that really wasn’t hate at all; but rather boarded on care, on mending each other back together again, on midnight baths and gentle hair washing that perhaps was indeed what other people called love – but Bucky wasn’t sure if either of them were going to be any less stubborn to be able to admit to that.

So the comfortable, familiar routine of hating without hate was who they were, and for now, that was enough. It w as as close to a home as Bucky ever thought he’d ever have, and he figured until the next time an alien apocalypse occured to end the world and he gets killed for the third time – _this_ would always be enough.

Sam chuckled softly, evidently surprised at Barnes' confession that seemed to tell more than anything he’d ever conveyed, and ran the cup of water down Bucky’s hair, letting the coconut shampoo rise away the red as it diluted into the pale lilac bath water. "Did you just admit that you appreciated me and my efforts?" 

Bucky shot him a sly look as Sam ran his hands down the wet strands of his head. Sam was smiling and Bucky felt as if he’d never wanted anything else other than this, head trauma be damned.

"I said your hair washing abilities didn’t entirely suck ass.” He scoffed, knowing the lie as well as he knew his own name, and perhaps Sam did, too; but it was easier to bask within the blissful oblivion, so familiar and warm. Their little dynamic was too ritualistic, too perfectly intimate and he wasn’t sure he could break it if he tried. “Plus, I'm concussed,” Bucky added with a light shrug. “You can't rely on anything I say in this fragile mind state."

Sam rolled his eyes – of course he did – but he was laughing and the sound was warm as the water – smelled as familiar as the lavender. "Believe me, Barnes,” Sam said. “I never rely on you in _any_ mind state.”

Bucky took the opportunity to splash him with the bath water, sending bubbles flying into the air and raining down upon them both like lilac petals in the spring when he and Steve had used them for confetti once. 

“Hey!” Sam gaped, water now soaking down the front of his shirt and rivalling Bucky with a look that had him hiding laughter more than anything, covering his own smile with his flesh hand. “Watch it, or I’ll cut all your prissy, luscious locks off while I’m at it!”

Bucky smirked, battering his eyes like a cliché dame in a romantic film, and revelled in the way Sam scoffed to hide the rosiness blooming upon his cheeks. _Bucky one, Sam zero_ – (yes it was a game at this point, and apparently the only ‘reward’ was making the other flustered, because that’s a.ll they wanted, like any good, hateful enemies would). "You think my hair is lucious, Wilson?"

Sam recovered enough to smirk his own sly smile, and said, "whatever we say doesn’t count, remember? Concussions rules."

Bucky just stared at him like the man had lost his brain, thinking about whether it was appropriate to splash Sam again, and how long he’d have to live after the deed had been done. "You’re not concussed."

"Doesn’t matter,” Sam shrugged and finished running the water through Bucky’s hair until all the shampoo was gone. “Like how I'm washing your hair – it's because you're concussed not because I like you."

Bucky raised a skeptical eyebrow, already sensing the bluff for what it was, but decided to indulge Sam in whatever game he was playing. Sam may be an insufferable human being that made his inside melt at the warmth of his touch, but fuck him if he was going to let Sam win at whatever this was. 

"Riiiiight,” he drawled, searching the characteristics of Sam’s face for the ones he missed the most during the time when time was intangible and all he was were dust and particles amongst the barren wasteland of the universe. 

He needed this, he needed Sam, Bucky realised.

He settled on what he was searching for, found the reassurance of undeniable familiarity, and suddenly couldn’t look away, as if Bucky had found his anchor amongst the pain and blood and amplified gunshots ringing throughout his head. Sam was like gravity.

“So, I could say that I like your eyes,” he said slowly, purposefully. “And it wouldn’t mean anything?" 

Sam never looked away, instead looking into Bucky’s own eyes as if he’d felt that same, unrelenting homesickness during their indefinite nonexistent, and ached to see – to _feel_ – Bucky in all the ways that were forbidden for the typical characterisation of two people who supposedly disliked each other. 

“Nope," Sam said, solid and unwaveringly, holding his gaze like a line of life.

Bucky’s breath faulted. The running water swirling around him had suddenly gone very silent, and Bucky could feel his heart beat like cannon fire – overwhelmingly warm, undeniably strong. 

"What if I said I want you? As in for now, or until tomorrow, or maybe beyond that?" He asked, trailing his gaze down to Sam’s pinkish lips where his body breathed in time with Bucky’s own lungs, oxygen binding their souls like constellated stars and flower chains of lilac lavender and daisies.

“Same rules.”

Buck could feel their faces gravitate towards each other, suddenly breaths apart. The heated bath water from Bucky’s cheeks was steaming against Sam’s own flesh, and yet somehow as if it were boundlessly inevitable – the post apocalyptic world of where two souls unlike anything the other had ever known, were condemned by higher powers outside beyond the universe, as very much the same. 

Maybe this was wrong. Maybe hating someone until you loved them went against the perfect constellations of the universe’s destiny that condemned Bucky and Sam to forever become something else, other than what they were – foes, incompatible, unlovable. 

But Bucky was used to defying against the forces of inevitability that eternally deemed him to become something other than what he was.

Tonight and maybe forever, all he truly wanted was Sam.

Sam Wilson, who felt hazy, illucid – _right._

"And what if I did this?" Bucky whispered, and before he had the chance to obey the moonless night’s sky and its foretold destiny condemning his soul to unlove – Bucky moved his face closer, pressing his lips to Sam’s gently parted mouth, and basked in the rhapsodic bliss of defying against hate – choosing something much more undeniably sweeter.

He chose the lilacs; he chose flower chains instead of shredded petals; he chose Sam. 

Their kiss was something of familiarity, delicate and soft in a way that neither of them were quite used to – something of lavender and warm bath water. Bucky laced his dripping, water-soaked fingers against Sam’s jaw and Sam leaned into his human touch.

They only pulled away once the concerns of their lips were smirking too much to ignore, yet neither looked as if they were quite ready to leave each other’s touch so quickly.

Sam spoke first, lips rosy and slick and just close enough to Bucky’s own to make him want to kiss Sam again. "Damn,” he breathed, “you’re a lot more concussed than I thought."

"Concussion rules,” he echoed not above a whisper. “Still hate you,” he then said, only because he didn’t.

Clearly, Sam didn’t either. 

"Hate you, too."


End file.
